RE: SPACE: Loss of the Saturn V

From: matus (matus@matus1976.com)
Date: Sat Sep 06 2003 - 07:57:06 MDT

  • Next message: Robert J. Bradbury: "RE: SPACE: Loss of the Saturn V"

    Robert Bradbury said:
    >I'm just blown away that the U.S. let one of its most
    >phenomenal technological achivements slip from its grasp. The
    >younger folks on the list will not get this -- but those of us
    >in our 40's watched those launches and watched the Apollo
    >lunar landings on TV too.
    >

    Robert Zubrin had some things to say on this subject in his book
    "Entering Space" Skylab had more liveable area than the ISS does and
    was made from the third stage of the Saturn V, it was originally the
    fuel tanks for the moon mission.

    Michael

    - Excerpts from Entering space - (Be sure to check the last paragraph)

    Political impacts on the US space program
    "The attempt to cope with these economic realities underlies much of the
    pathology associated with the Shuttle program for the past twenty years.
    For example, in selling the Shuttle program to Congress during the
    1970's, NASA officials claimed that the Shuttle would fly forty times
    per year (one launch every nine days!). This prediction should have
    aroused skepticism on two grounds: (a) the technical difficult in
    preparing a Shuttle for launch in so short a time and (b) the lack of a
    payload manifest large enough to such a launch rate. NASA leaders left
    (a) up to the engineers to solve as best they could, but attempted to
    solve (b) themselves through political action. Specifically, the NASA
    brass in the late 1970's abd tge early 1980's obtained agreements from
    the White House to the effect that once the Shuttle became fully
    operational, all U.S. government payloads would be launched on the
    Shuttle. That is, NASA wanted to the expendable Deltas, Atlases, and
    Titans phased out of existence so that the Shuttle could enjoy a bigger
    manifest and have its economics improve accordingly. The Air Force
    resisted this policy, as they feared that a Shuttle accident could cause
    a stand-down of the entire program, which would them make it impossible
    to launch vital military reconnaissance and communication satellites
    when required. It seems incredible today, but the NASA argument actually
    carried the day against the Air Force in Washington's corridors of
    power. During the 1980's, the expendable "mixed fleet" was in the
    process of being phased out. It was only after the Challenger disaster
    in January 1986 proved the Air Force concerns were fully justified that
    President Reagan reversed the decision."

    Robert Zubrin - Entering Space - page 27-28

      ---------

    Politics and the International Space Station (idealogical driven
    scientific goals)
    "The need to increase the launch manifest to justify Shuttle economics
    played a central role in the decision to initiate the Space Station
    program. In the early 1980s, NASA Deputy Administrator Hans Mark saw
    clearly that achieving a shuttle launch rate of twenty-five per year
    would be impossible without the manifest created by the construction and
    supply needs of a permanently orbiting outpost, which he already
    supported as a facility for in space scientific research (mark did not
    believe the forty launches per year touted by earlier shuttle advocates
    was feasible under any conditions). Based on this (probably accurate
    assessment), Mark convinced first NASA Administrator James Beggs and
    then the Reagan White House of the need for a space station program. The
    need to generate a large shuttle manifest also helps to explain the
    bizarre nature of the engineering designs that have guided the space
    station program since its inceptions.

    The right way to build a Space Station is to build a heavy-lift launch
    vehicle and use it to launch the station in a single piece. The United
    States launched the Skylab space station in this manner in 1973. Skylab,
    which contained more living space than the currently planned
    International Space Station (ISS), was built in one piece and launched
    in a single day. AS a result, the entire Skylab program, end to end from
    1968 to 1974, including development, build, launch, and operation was
    conducted at a cost in today's money of about $4 Billion, roughly
    one-eighth of the anticipated cost of the ISS. In contrast, the Space
    Station has gone through numerous designs (of which the current ISS is
    the latest), all of which called for over thirty Shuttle Launches, each
    delivering an element that would be added into an extended ticky-tacky
    structure on orbit. Since no one really knows how to do this, such an
    approach has caused the program development cost and schedule to
    explode. In 1993, the recently appointed NASA Administrator Dan Goldin
    attempted to deal with this situation be ordering a total reassessment
    of the Space Station's design. Three teams, labeled A, B, and C, were
    assigned to develop complete designs for three distinct Space Station
    concepts. Teams A and B took two somewhat different approaches to the by
    then standard thirty-Shuttle-launch/orbit assembly concept, whereas team
    C developed a Skylab-type design that would be launched in a single
    throw of a heave lift vehicle (a "Shuttle C" consisting of the Shuttle
    launch stack but without the reusable orbiter). The three approaches
    were then submitted to a blue ribbon panel organized by the
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology for competitive judgment. The
    M.I.T. panel ruled decisively in favor of option C (a fact that
    demonstrated only their common sense, not their brilliance, as C was
    much cheaper, simpler, safer, more reliable, and more capable and would
    have given the nation a heavy-lift launcher as a bonus). However, based
    on the need to create Shuttle Launches as well as a desire to have the
    Space Station design that would allow modular additions by international
    partners, Vice President Al Gore and House Space Subcommittee chairman
    George Brown overruled the M.I.T. panel. By political fiat, these
    gentlemen forced NASA to accept option A, and thee space agency has had
    to struggle with the task of building the Space Station on that basis
    ever since. The result has been a further set of cost and schedule
    overruns, the blame for which has been consistently placed on various
    NASA middle managers instead of those really responsible."
    Robert Zubrin - Entering Space - page 28-29



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